A MODEL-mad pensioner who spent his life driving lorries has made his own unique trucker tribute – by making 120 miniature wagons from scratch.

Former haulier Jack Spittle has spent the last 80 years carving the inch-perfect miniature trucks of haulage giants like Eddie Stobart using nothing more than sheets of cardboard and plastic and a craft knife.

The retired trucker says everything down to the dashboards, cab seats and even the grooves in the tyres perfectly match the real thing.

Jack, aged 87, from Fallings Park, Wolverhampton, gave up work as a driver 30 years ago, but has dedicated the three decades since filling his entire house with painstaking recreations of the nation’s most iconic lorries.

He has been lovingly piecing together trucks as a hobby since completing his first model out of cardboard as a youngster and spends months at a time constructing each one.

He said: “I used to start with cardboard but these days I just use sheets of plastic and a knife – people have said I’m so good with the knife I’ve been in the wrong job and I should be a surgeon.

“The finished products aren’t just look-a-likes, they have the exact seats in the cabs, as well as the dashboards and they are all perfectly modelled.

“I actually started making models when I was ten, using bits of cardboard. I really enjoy putting them together.

“All I have ever used to create a replica model is plastic, paint and something to cut the pieces out.

“They take weeks or months each to finish, because I always make sure they look just like the real thing.”

Amateur model maker Jack said he has received countless offers to sell his collection, including some bids over £2,000 for his prize trucks – but he has refused to sell.

Jack added his love of haulage began at the age of five when he was introduced to trucks by his driver dad, starting off a lorry love affair which has yet to run out of steam 80 years on.

Over the years, Jack has worked for a dozen haulage firms and spent ten years as a self-employed driver before turning his hand to model truck making full time.

The sheets of plastic he uses in his model-making are bought from model shops and the wheels are carefully carved from modelling card.

Jack then uses modelling clay to accurately replicate the grooves in the tiny tyres.

The iconic emblems and logos on his trucks are recreated with lettering sets to complete the replica lorries which have taken over the house he shares with wife Beryl.

His most intricate lorry took five months to finish, and his biggest wagon is a massive four feet long.

Jack added: “I must have more than 120 by now, but none of them are for sale.

“I get all kinds of offers from people who want to buy them. They’ve taken up my entire spare room from floor to ceiling, and I’m starting to run out of parking spaces in the house – some of the lorries are up to four feet long.”

Beryl, aged 83, said: “It takes him months at a time to finish just one lorry, and Jack will just sit there at the kitchen table for hours at a time.

“I’ve become a real model-making widow.

“But he has been making them since he was five and has a real gift for it.”